Das selbe, aber nicht das gleiche

Echter Schmerz in der Virtualität. Welche Konsequenz hat die Vergewaltigung eines virtuellen Kindes?

The questions raised by The Nether aren’t new, but they do gain power as the visual fidelity of video games and virtual worlds increases. And they force viewers to think more critically about their own views. Where do we draw the dividing line between the moral and the immoral when actions aren’t “real”—and where should the law draw its own, more severe line?

The cooler isn’t smart enough

What does Amazon Dash mean for merchants, brands, advertisers and customers?

Assorted thoughts. Some of which pertain to the near, some to a future farther away.

Brands

  • reduced churn rate
  • much harder to penetrate customer-brand relationship
  • the button is a buying decision for a specific product of a specific brand - different product, different button

Advertising

  • to increase sales, brands cannot rely on advertising as they do today
  • reward for switching brand needs to be very convincing, customer has to replace a physical* object*
  • can you display a price drop via the button?
  • customers don’t go into the supermarket and fetch whatever is better displayed, they press a button. see above.
  • brands need to reconsider who their customers really are: distributors or you and me at home?

Merchants (or buttoneers. see below.)

  • merchant becames invisible - you push a branded button
  • merchant becomes omnipresent/part of our lives/room mate, knowing everything a room mate would
  • what does merchant do with this kind of data?

Private Transportation

  • even less reason to own a car
  • even less reason to rent a car to go heavy shopping

Architecture

  • goods elevators, the servants’ entrance of the 21st century?
  • extra delivery room?

Logistics

  • “Press the button five seconds for express delivery”?
  • 50 people getting new detergent – is 3.5 tons* still enough?
  • I am not really savvy enough in logistics … still:
    • even more back injuries?
    • larger trucks, more traffic?
    • even more trucks?
    • hopefully, because logistic companies will need to lower costs, thus more demand for long-lasting power source for trucks. j/k
    • “truck lane”?
    • …

Etc

  • child-proof buttons!
  • how could customer identification work w/o or w/ minimal interaction? WiFi specifics?
  • where else could you get buttons from? kiosks, cornershops, “vending machines”?
  • will supermarkets give away buttons instead of products and receive commission from merchants or brands?
  • are buttons middleware? who will run them, buttoneers?

Outlook**

  • coolers ain’t so smart because our technology lacks intelligence. Tech can count and do basic calculus, but it cannot decide whether to order new detergent. with the data buttoneers collect while mimicking a very clean and quiet room mate, can we evolve our alogrithms so we can trust them enough to take informed decisions?

*) 3.5 tons is the max cargo a run-off-the-mill transporter used by DHL, UPS etc. can carry when fully loaded. at least in germany. ymmv.
**) did anyone spot the word “privacy” here?

Beobachtungen IV

  • Freunde erkennst du erst in der Not. Danke euch allen!
  • Einschneidende Erlebnisse sind nicht lange einschneidend und werden schnell Routine. Angenehm müssen sie deswegen nicht sein.
  • Danke an China Miéville für Rail Sea, Perdido Street Station und so viele andere Ideen und Welten.
  • Sich zu sehr mit “tagesaktuellem” zu beschäftigen, nimmt die Sicht aufs Ganze. Abstand ist wichtig. Filter ebenso.

Prestigeverlust, der keiner ist

Worin bestehen die Vor- und Nachteile von CarSharing? Für den Verbraucher entfällt beispielsweise die Anschaffung des Autos inklusive teurer Folgekosten wie Inspektionen und Reparaturen. Die Technik in den meist neuwertigen Fahrzeugen ist in der Regel auf dem neuesten Stand. CarSharing ist umweltfreundlich und entlastet den Verkehr. Zu den Schwachstellen zählen unter anderem die erforderliche Flexibilität und keine garantierte Mobilität. Bei längerer Nutzung ist CarSharing vergleichsweise teuer und für Berufspendler nicht geeignet. Hinzu kommt der Prestigeverlust des eigenen Autos. Außerdem finden sich entsprechende Angebote hauptsächlich in Großstädten und Ballungsräumen. (Pressemeldung des TÜV Rheinland vom 13.01.)

Das eigene Auto hat nur noch für Babyboomer Prestige.

German politics on spying and data protection

Reading current newspapers and magazines in Germany could give you the impression we’re done with the Snowden, NSA and GCHQ. They are listening in on all our communications? Even on Frau Merkel’s?

That is not what we should be afraid of. They are friends. Also, we do not want to do anything about it. Let’s rather talk about the evil that is Facebook and Google.

Obviously, they are soft targets. It resonates well with Jane and John Doe’s perception of them as evil exploiters of seemingly private data.

What does that have to do with the Five Eyes tapping into freakin’ sea cables to listen in on every phone call you ask? Nothing, of course. It’s a nothing but smoke screen, a spin doctor’s concoction.

The best part is, this spin comes in handy for two democratic forces that are usually at odds. The executive branch does not want to do anything about the Five Eyes. Not because it fears repercussions, but because going after them would mean to deny themselves to pry open private communications. On the other hand, the so called forth power has been fighting a battle against Google and Co. for years. Instead of innovating, they blame their loss of reach, revenue, importance, credibility, you name it, on Google.

Even if you find the topic overwhelmingly complex (and it is!), you should at the very least be able to tell there is something at work when politics and press mutually agree on something.

[Update] Read Michael “mspro” Seemann’s German article about this spin here. He explores the connections and links between the involved parties in more details and adds even more beef.

[Update] Swiss newspaper NZZ headlines “Wrong-headed Debate about Google” (German), putting together recent media coverage and opinions in German media.

Image by PM Cheung, CC-BY.

United States of Secrets, No Place to Hide

PBS’s Frontline has put out the first part of the documentary “United States of Secrets”, explaining in great detail how the US government came to spy on millions of Americans. It’s a two hours watch you might find worthwhile. Checkout this NYT piece about the series.

Also Glenn Greenwalds book “No Place to Hide” is worth your time. Preorder it in print or download to your Kindle today at Amazon. See Wired for a narrative and Ars Technica for images of NSA technicians implanting beacons in Cisco routers.

C-131/12 - International reactions, including Spain

Greg Sterling, Searchengineland:

There would appear to be numerous potential problems with practical implementation of the right to be forgotten. How much time must pass before lawful information becomes “outdated”? Will the rules be applied evenhandedly in separate jurisdictions in Europe? What about professional negligence or low-level public figures trying to control public perceptions; what information does the public have a right to know? #

Lisa Fleisher, Wall Street Journal:

An EU court ruling on Tuesday saying that Google must scrub search results because of personal-privacy concerns might perplex Americans, and yet seem perfectly logical to Europeans. #

Lily Hay Newman, Slate:

“How, ENISA asks, would government force the forgetting of a couple’s photograph when one person wants the photo forgotten and the other doesn’t? And how can data be tracked down and ‘forgotten’ when we don’t even know who has seen or stored it?” Stewart Baker wrote after the report’s release. #

Ignazio Fariza & Rosario E. Gomez, EL PAÍS:

The EU forces Google to remove links to harmful information. #